


Dreams

by FormerBunhead



Series: The Fox & Flea [2]
Category: Fleabag (TV)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Family Feels, Mild Smut, Romantic Fluff, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27546745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FormerBunhead/pseuds/FormerBunhead
Summary: This is the follow-up to The Fox & Flea Part 1: Supercut.After four years apart, our man and his Fleabag have gone and done the thing!Sorry, no, not THAT thing. But they probably will in this installment, which is something to look forward to in these troubling and unprecedented times, wouldn't you agree?And if you're not into that, there's Claire being a lovable bitch, an adorable kitchen dance party, a shot or two of Phoebe's perspective, and some pretty intense revelations about the past. Something for everyone!
Relationships: Claire & Fleabag (Fleabag), Claire/Klare (Fleabag), Fleabag & Priest (Fleabag), Fleabag/Priest (Fleabag)
Series: The Fox & Flea [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012479
Comments: 50
Kudos: 58





	1. We Were Raised To See Life as Fun and Take It If We Can

**Author's Note:**

> We're going with a throwback theme for the chapter titles in this one. On the day I went to upload this, my friend Kelly (hi Kelly!) posted to Facebook, "I wish you a “Dreams” by The Cranberries sort of day"... and I immediately got this image of our man in his kitchen, frying up sausages and eggs, smoking a joint, and singing his heart out to that song. So I knew that was going to be the guiding vibe for this section: big guitar riffs and big feelings, drums like the beat of a heart, euphoric love that's just right and also a little out of control.

Claire is practically throwing wine glasses into the box next to her feet, barely even bothering to wrap them. They’re the cheap ones they keep for big parties, anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

She’s completely escalated. She’s absolutely fucking fuming. Which makes her even angrier, the inability to reign in her feelings.

She checks her phone for the millionth time. No missed calls. No texts. No emails. Not that her sister has ever sent an email in her entire fucking life.

It’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon. What the _hell_ is Phoebe playing at?!

She crumples paper around a few more glasses and, finally, one slips from her hand. It smashes onto the floor, shards skittering halfway across the room. 

Oh, thank God. That was all the permission she needed to lose control. She does another one, intentionally this time, then another. 

She’s about to release quite a maniacal laugh when Klare pokes his head into the kitchen, clearing his throat. 

“Everything okay?” he asks. 

She didn’t realize her family was still home. He’d been planning to take Cece on a walk after her nap. 

“Oh, yes, everything’s fine,” she replies, giving him a big smile. “It was an accident. Butterfingers.” 

He gives her the look of all spouses who recognize a bald-faced lie when they hear one and decide to let it go. “Okay,” he says. “It’s just that the noise… woke Cece up. And it's making Hillary a bit frightened. She’s squeaking.”

“Oh shit,” she says, chagrined. “I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s all right,” he says. “We’re about to leave.” He pauses in the doorway with an impish grin. “But maybe you could… accidentally drop the rest of the glasses outside?”

She smiles back softly. He doesn’t always understand her, but he acts as if he does. Making space so she can vent her pressure valves, no matter how weird and disconcerting that might be for everyone else. 

“Thank you,” she says quietly. He blows her a kiss, which she returns, and goes to upstairs to retrieve their daughter.

She picks up the box of goblets and heads cheerfully, furiously, down to the garden. 

******************

The pavement is littered with broken glass. IKEA’s finest, smithereened in service of her temper. 

Worth every penny, she thinks. She didn’t want to move all that shit to Finland anyway.  
  
Claire kicks at the mess, smiling, and lights a cigarette. She’s discovered a mushed-up emergency pack still hidden behind a loose brick in the garden wall. She’d stashed it there when Cece was a baby who never slept. 

As she smokes, she leans back against the house, bundling deeper into her parka. Watches a murmuration of birds changing shape above the trees, content, peaceful.  
  
She pulls out her phone and dials her sister. 

“Good morning, sunshine.” Phoebe’s voice comes across the line just when Claire had almost given up on her picking up.

“Hello you absolute trash heap,” Claire responds affectionately. “It’s afternoon.” 

There’s a pause.

“Still angry, then,” Phoebe says. 

“Oh yes,” Claire answers. She slices and dices her sister with a smile in her voice. “You’re incorrigible. 37 years old and you act like a horny undergrad. You jeopardized both our jobs.” She pauses, drawing on her cigarette. 

“Are you smoking?” Phoebe asks. 

“No,” Claire says quickly. She carefully mashes the tip of the cigarette against the wall so she can re-light it later, refusing to give Phoebe the satisfaction of being right.

“Bollocks,” Phoebe says. “Sisters know things.” 

Claire inhales, willing herself to stay calm. “Well,” she says edgily. “Sisters don’t know _everything_.” 

Phoebe sighs. “Just say it, Claire. I have shit to do.” 

Fair enough. She takes a deep breath and unleashes.

“I can’t _believe_ you didn’t call me first thing this morning,” she shouts. “I mean, sure, you texted about not taking Cece to the cafe this morning, which is fine. But how dare you not call me. You fucked a priest _in_ _my office_ and you didn’t even have the decency to debrief the evening with me. It’s the height of rudeness, if you want to know the truth. It really hurt my feelings. I’ve been spitting mad all day because of it and I had to smash a bunch of wine goblets to feel better and it scared Hillary.” 

There’s a long, astonished pause. Fuck it - Claire lights the cigarette again and keeps smoking. Being honest really works her last nerve.

“Claire,” Phoebe chuckles tenderly, teasing. “I didn’t know you cared. We never do girl talk.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Claire snaps. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier,” Phoebe starts.

“You didn’t call me _at all_ !” Claire says. “I had to call _you!_ It’s humiliating!”

“Okay. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’ve had a busy day.”

Claire snorts. “A busy day boning a man of the cloth.” 

“Claire, he’s not a priest anymore. You know that. And anyway, we didn’t have sex.” 

“You what?!” Claire is incandescent at this point. “Are you joking? All that, and you didn’t even -”

“No, we didn’t,” Phoebe interrupts, then pauses for effect. “We didn’t want to get jizz all over your nice couch.” 

Claire bursts out laughing. It pours out from her very center. She realizes she needed this release as much as she needed the anger. Maybe more.

She can feel Phoebe smiling through the line, but it goes a bit sad after a moment. “Today was busy because I had to break up with Nicola,” she says quietly. 

“Oh.” Claire stops laughing. “Oh dear. Why did you do that?” She already knows, but she wants to hear Phoebe say it.

“Because we’re going to make a go of things,” her sister says, a tad bashful. “Andrew and I.”

A huge smile is making its way across Claire’s face, but she tamps it down. “Well, that’s a disaster,” she sniffs, business-like.

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Phoebe says. 

“Are you in love with him?” Claire demands, ashing her cigarette into the pile of glass near her feet.

Silence. And then: “Yes,” Phoebe says. “I wouldn’t actually upend my entire life if I wasn't.”

“Flea, he’s a self-centered asshole with a God complex who manipulates women for sport,” Claire says, but even she knows her objections are perfunctory legalese. “He’ll make a hash of you. And this time I won’t be there to pick up the pieces.” 

“You’re totally right,” Phoebe says patiently. Waits another moment. “Have you seen his arms, though, Claire? I mean, come on.” 

Claire laughs again, she can’t help it. “Fair point,” she says. 

They both sigh. Claire takes one last drag off her cigarette and drops it.

“I’m pleased for you, Phoebe,” she says quietly. “Honestly, it’s about fucking time.” 

“Can I tell him that?” Phoebe asks. Claire can hear her raised eyebrows through the phone. “He thinks you hate him.”

“Oh, I do,” Claire says passionately. “He’s a wanker and a prat and a slimy turd. So what you can tell him is that I still haven’t forgiven him for last time, and that I will make his life a misery if he hurts you again.” She steps on the cigarette butt, crunching glass beneath her shoe. “Please tell him those exact words.” 

“All of them?” Phoebe says dubiously. “The slimy turd part?”

“ _Especially_ that part.”

They both cackle again. 

“So where did you leave things with him?” Claire asks, unable to curb her curiosity. 

“Well, we’ve been texting today, making some plans,” her sister says. “I’m going over to his in a bit.”

Claire waits expectantly.

“I will call you first thing tomorrow and give you all the gory details,” Phoebe reassures her. 

Claire smiles. “I don’t need ALL the details,” she says, as if miffed. “That’s disgusting.”

“Your loss,” Phoebe says. “I mean, if I recall correctly, he does this amazing thing where -”

“Fleabag,” Claire says sternly, cutting her off.  
  
(She makes a mental note to follow up on said amazing thing at the last standing date they'll have before Finland. The sisters get together every Friday, an event labeled in her calendar as _Drinks w/ Phoebe_ that generally turns out more like _Get Completely Fucking Trollied on Vodka Cocktails w/ Phoebe_. There’s loads of oversharing and sometimes, if Claire’s really trashed, they hug at the end. It’s her favorite day of the week.)

“Okay, got to go,” Phoebe says. “I have to, um, shave things.”

“Ew,” Claire says. “Fuck off.” 

Phoebe laughs. Waits a beat. “I love you, Claire,” she says. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you here.” 

Claire suddenly can’t breathe, she’s that close to crying. She grabs another cigarette from the box and lights it, but she hasn’t caught it in time. She’s forced to smoke furiously with tears coursing down her cheeks.

“It’s okay not to say it back,” Phoebe says. “I know you’ll miss me too.” 

Claire collects herself. “Wear the black dress I got you for your birthday,” she orders. “I know you think it doesn’t suit you, but trust me, you look like sex on a stick.” 

She feels Phoebe grin. “Thanks, Claire,” she says.

They hang up at the same time.

Claire looks up at the treeline again. The birds have settled now, and the sky is that sharp, cold blue you only see in winter. She basks in it.

She opens her texts and digs around in the search history until she finds the number she wants. She thumbs out a message, then taps the little paper airplane icon to send it, allowing herself a satisfied nod. It’s handled.  
  
She gets a broom and starts sweeping up the glass, still smiling, cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. 


	2. If You Want Me I'll Be Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our man does not know how to text his crush. Just adorable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Texting is really hard to portray on here, but I gave it my best shot!

Later that Sunday, he’s pacing the living room, clutching his phone. Torturing himself. 

That same morning, he’d been all confidence, strutting around like God’s gift, bestowing the promise of advanced-level sex and emotional stability to the very person he now can’t figure out how to call. 

What the hell is wrong with him? When it comes down to the wire, why is he always such a bloody... weaky? 

He shakes it off and winds up deciding to text. He finds Fleabag in his contacts and starts typing.

> _What’s up?_

He grimaces, deletes. Tries again.

> _Hallo you_

Oh God. Someone should put him out of his misery. Backspace backspace backspace.

> _Hey babe_

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE. 

> _Hi Phoebe._

Okay. Fine. Good enough. He sends it.

A few moments later, a reply comes through. 

> **hi  
> ** **who is this**

Jesus Christ. What the fuck. 

> **just kidding  
> ** **i did delete you from my phone ages ago  
> ** **couldn’t risk the inevitable drunk dial booty call(s) for which i am world-famous  
> ** **but i know it’s you  
> ** **no one else uses punctuation**

A few beats as he watches the bubble full of dots jump on the screen, paralyzed by her rapid-fire and almost too-honest texts.

Then:

> **what’s the plan**

He takes a deep breath and types.

> _Are you still up for coming over to mine?_

This time her reply is instantaneous. 

> **yes fucking yes please yes  
> ** **sorry, that was a deeply uncool response  
> ** **i have no chill  
> ** **i just like you so much and i can't wait to see you  
> ** **also want to jump your bones asap**

He gulps. Literally gulps. Fucking millennials.  
  
(At least he assumes she’s a millennial. He’s realizing he doesn’t actually know how old she is. More fodder for another round of Regular Things.) 

He slowly types back. 

> _Same here. Is everything squared away on your end?_

Her reply comes back swiftly:

> **what do you mean squared away  
> ** **sQUaReD AwaY he says  
> ** **you grandpa  
> ** **you codger  
> ** **you gigantic fucking nerd  
> ** **i love you**

He smiles. Texting is bringing more dimension to his understanding of her. In person, she’s intentionally opaque, strategically walled off, using only her face to communicate the true meaning of a sentence that, on its own, could be taken a dozen different ways. But her texts are guileless. It’s like plugging directly into the mainframe of her quicksilver mind. He can tell from the rat-a-tat pace and brutal honesty that she’s not thinking anything through before she sends it.

It's intimidating, and also dead sexy. He’s going to have to learn to keep up.

> _I meant, is everything sorted with Nicola._

She responds:

> **yes we have the ALL CLEAR**

He sits down and considers. He can kick this up a notch, even if he is a codger. 

> _Does that mean you broke up with her? Or are we now a throuple?_

A pause while the bubbles dance again on his screen. 

> **ohhhhhhhh shittttttttttt** **  
> ****did i tell you that we had an open relationship????  
> ** **i’m never drinking whiskey again  
> ** **yes we broke up  
> ** **it was awful and i hated it  
> ** **what about marco  
> ** **oh god was it like kicking a puppy??????  
> ** **or THROWING A GUINEA PIG?????**

He shakes his head sadly. It had been a bit like kicking a puppy. 

> _Yeah, we called it off. He understood. That was the worst part, honestly. Him understanding. He didn’t want to get in the way of true love, he said._

There’s a very long hiatus before her next reply. He makes a cup of tea, folds some laundry, gives his bedroom a final once over. Freaks the _fuck_ out that he may have overplayed his hand with the “true love” comment, even though they’d been gushing all over each other that morning.

FInally, his phone buzzes in his pocket. 

> **sorry, my sister called  
> ** **she was pissed  
> ** **category 3 claire-storm, i’d say** **  
> ****but it’s handled**

There’s a little GIF of Olivia Pope strutting along in a white trench coat with the last text. He smiles, but it dies on his lips. He cannot have Claire getting upset at him again.

> _Uh oh. What was she mad about? The office?_

Her replies come in another spurt.

> **not really  
> ** **she’s ticked off that i didn’t call her to “debrief the evening”  
> ** **as she so charmingly put it  
>  the woman is a true romantic** ****

Just then, another message pings onto his screen from an unknown number:

> DON’T FUCK THIS UP.

He stares at it for a full minute, trying to suss it out. Then, the fox grin starts its slow, maniacal spread across his face. Of course she texts in all caps.

He swipes his hand over his eyes, giggling a bit at the absurdity. He taps out a response: 

> _Wouldn’t dream of it, Claire. Fuck you very much._

He toggles back over to Phoebe’s messages and picks up the thread about her sister's interest in their evening.

> _So wait… she wanted to know if we’d slept together?_

He can feel her amusement through the screen. ****

> **yes  
> ** **i mean wouldn’t you  
>  nobody can resist our will-they won't-they dynamic  
> not even claire  
> ** **we’re the otp, babe**

He doesn’t even bother asking what OTP means. He’ll google it later. Also, “babe” is not a thing he could ever imagine Phoebe calling anyone, but he kind of digs it. 

> _Are you sure? She didn’t want to murder me?_

A message pings back from Claire at that moment: 

> FUCK YOU VERY  VERY  MUCH. COME FOR DINNER W/ PHOEBE ON THURS.

He’s totally jarred by this abrupt relational tone shift. What’s happening? Where's all the slapping and fury? Has he actually won her over?! 

> _Is this a trick?_

She writes back immediately.

> I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR TRICKS. BRING CHAMPAGNE.   
> REAL CHAMPAGNE.   
> SPARKLING WINE IS SHIT. 

He smiles. A detente, then. If she’s willing to stand down, so is he. 

> _As you wish. Bye, Claire._

He navigates back over to the Phoebe chat. Funny that they'd been talking about Claire murdering him. Phoebe's left him a novella:

> **oh, she did want to kill you  
> ** **but i could tell her heart wasn’t in it  
> ** **it’s like i told you  
> ** **hate is her love language  
> ** **she called you a slimy turd  
> ** **and that’s how i know she adores you  
> ** **i think she might actually like you more than she likes me**

“Slimy turd?” he mouths to himself. Rude. 

He’s ready to move this forward. Briefly weighing how committed he is to his dignity, he types:

> _This has been fun, but could you please just get your ass over here? I’m dying to see you._

He can somehow feel her smile all the way down the line. 

> **thought you’d never ask  
> ** **text me the address**

He does.

> **be there in 20  
> ** **also i’m adding you back into my phone  
> ** **it’s a truly generous act of faith on my part and you can thank me later  
> ** **how do you want to be listed in my contacts  
> ** **Arsehole Guy and Hot Misogynist are already taken  
> ** **just fyi**

He laughs, positive that those are (or at least have been) actual contacts in her phone. He meditates on his listing for a moment. 

> _Just Andrew is fine. I like when you call me by my name._

There’s a pause during which she must be entering his contact info. 

> **i’d noticed  
> ** **you absolute rogue  
> ** **ok Just Andrew  
> ** **see you soon  
> ** **yayyyyyyyyyyyyy**

Fucking adorable. He thinks that’s it, but then the phone buzzes again.

> **fair warning, i do actually plan eat you alive** **  
> ****like a praying fucking mantis  
> ** **and then we can watch your favorite show  
> ** **i read something that said it’s about “murder, murder, hair”  
> ** **which feels very on brand for me frankly  
> ** **so i’m all in**

What is with these women and their violent aspirations for him. Claire's threats terrify him, but Phoebe's basically make him climb the walls with desire.  
  
His face is burning. He texts back with sweaty fingers.

> _Ideal evening. Get here now._

She really is going to kill him before all this is over. He can't fucking wait. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Dreaming My Dreams" by The Cranberries


	3. We'll Find Another End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our man has a wardrobe crisis (in more ways than one!) and time-warps back to the morning of the wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the raciest thing I've ever written and it still doesn't hold a candle to 99% of the smut on here. But we have to travel back to the past again before we head into the future, and for that I took one for the team. Yes, I got over myself and dug deep for some nudity, a hard-on, and the word "pussy." Plus a number of cheeky sentences that can (and hopefully will) be taken several ways with varying results. 
> 
> I recommend queuing up S2 Ep6 so you can have it ready to watch right after you finish this chapter. I was careful to match the mood of this chapter to that of the source material, and I think it lines up pretty well. Plus, you can never go wrong with the make-out scene of the century. 
> 
> LSS, this one's for you.

He spends the next 15 minutes having a full-on meltdown.  
  
He changes his shirt four times and still hates it. He can’t stop examining himself in the foyer mirror. Why on earth did he cancel his haircut last week? No matter what he does, the thing looks like a haystack.  
  
He returns his attention to the shirt situation - is there any way to salvage it? Take it down two buttons, maybe? Boring. What if he unbuttons three? Nevermind, deranged lothario is not the vibe he’s going for. Back to two: boring, sure, but reliable.  
  
He tries again to make his hair do something that isn’t awful. Debates shaving. Decides not to, she’s said she likes the scruff. Christ what the _fuck_ is wrong with his hair.

In the mirror he catches sight of the cat behind him, sitting primly in the middle of the rug, scrutinizing him. 

“Oh fuck off!” he exclaims, rounding on her. 

She just stares back placidly. Blinks. Then licks her paw judgmentally, sniffs the air, and saunters away.

“What a snooty little asshole,” he says under his breath, which he finds occasion to do basically every day. Should’ve gotten a dog. 

He sighs and plops down in his favorite chair. Closes his eyes and presses the heels of his hands into them. Lets the quiet of the sanctuary he’s created in his home wash over him. Takes a few cleansing breaths, then a few more.  
  
This is going to be fine. This is going to be great. Everything’s splendid.

The minutes crawl by. He tries to tune into the rhythm of the clock ticking on the mantle.

He just about dozes off for a bit, then snaps abruptly back into consciousness. Grabs his phone to make sure he hasn’t missed anything.  
  
The screen is blank. And she’s now much later than she said she’d be.  
  
Anxiety zings through him, electric. At a certain point, he thinks, you just have to admit defeat. Fuck meditation. All the peaceful centering in the world is not going to stave off the massive crisis of confidence threatening to overtake him.

He fidgets, trying to figure out if he should text her. No, too needy. Just cool your ass*, man.  
  
 _Come on_ , he wills her. He knows she always runs behind, but what the hell. This is a torment.

He gets a sudden flash: Phoebe, racing around her flat in a frenzy, getting ready for the wedding. He smiles and decides to make time speed up by falling down the rabbit hole into his memories of that bright morning four years ago. 

> They’d lazed around, neither caring to leave the consequence-free nest of her bed for the stark truths of the real world. And before they knew it, between dozing and having sex and talking and basking, noon had rolled around.  
>   
> At which point they came to the sudden, horrifying, mutual realization that they were equally incompetent at managing their time. Neither of them had ever stuck to a schedule in their lives, and they had to be at her father’s house in an hour. _Bastard._  
>   
>  It was pretty hilarious, actually, both of them abandoning any pretense of bashfulness in service of complete mayhem. While she ransacked her closet for a dress, wearing only her knickers, he’d run to the bathroom. 
> 
> First things first. He absolutely could not officiate a wedding with pussy on his breath. (Had a more absurd thought ever crossed his mind?! Well, no matter. This whole thing was absurd.)  
>   
> “Weird question, but can I use your toothbrush?” he called helplessly, turning his trousers right side out.
> 
> “Yeah, of course,” she answered absent-mindedly. A few moments later, she called his name from the bedroom. “Come here, will you? I need an opinion,” she said. 
> 
> He popped around the corner, having wrestled himself most of the way into his trousers, still brushing his teeth. She was standing there, holding a blue dress on a hanger against her chest and a red one in her hand.  
>   
> “Which one?” she asked, switching back and forth between them, furrowing her brow at him.  
>   
> And just like that, the last of his already shaky defenses against falling in love with her crumbled to dust. 
> 
> It wasn’t only because she was basically nude, so that when she traded the dresses in front of her, he caught a glimpse of the rosy bloom of her breasts, the slender nip of her waist, the delicate architecture of her collarbone and shoulders.  
>   
> Although that was definitely part of it. 
> 
> It was really the way she was looking at him: expectant, quite harried, and with total trust. He had the sudden abiding sense that this scenario could repeat itself endlessly over the course of many years - each attending to their own mundane duties, but checking in, leaning on each other. At home in their own skin, and in the warm cocoon of a life together.
> 
> There was nothing complicated about the look on her face in that moment. Nothing heart-breaking, nothing painful, nothing implausible. Nothing sinful at all.  
>   
> There was only intimacy. And he wanted it with her, probably forever, however insane that might seem.
> 
> For a split second, he considered throwing the toothbrush to the ground, consuming the space between them in three strides, tossing her onto the bed, and trying once again to make every part of her a part of himself. Every part of himself a part of her. Knit together, inextricable.
> 
> Then she’d laughed, and he snapped out of it. “Hey, focus up,” she said. “Stop looking at my tits and help me pick a dress.”
> 
> He’d smiled and pretended to consider, raking his eyes over her body, trying to memorize her. “Blue one for sure,” he said around the toothbrush. 
> 
> She made a face. “Really?” she said doubtfully, holding both dresses out to look at them at arm’s length.
> 
> Aaaaaaand there was her whole entire gorgeous miraculous self again, on full display, hips and sternum (how could a fucking _sternum_ be sexy???) and mile-long legs with adorably knobby knees and tiny wisps of hair curling from her knickers and the swell of her breasts and oh God FIVE-ALARM FIRE CODE RED DEFCON ONE HOUSTON WE HAVE AN ENORMOUS PROBLEM.  
>   
> He whipped around into the bathroom, spit in the sink, rinsed the toothbrush, and tried to breathe through the sudden situation happening in his pants. He knew he was out of practice, but Jesus, how many fucking erections could a person expect to get in a single day?! Good thing his wedding vestment was billowy. 
> 
> He somehow wrenched himself back under control. He turned to lean in the doorway, crossing his arms against his bare chest, pulsing his most devastating ladykiller vibes at her. Turning the tables was the only answer, and it worked. She pulled the blue dress back against to her body and went positively gooey in the tractor beam of his gaze.
> 
> “Blue, then,” she said, flustered. “You sure?”
> 
> “Definitely,” he answered lightly. “The red one’s a disaster. For me, I mean. I’ll be climbing you in a hedgerow before the ceremony’s even started.” He gave her the works: eyebrows, jaw, biceps, half-smile, all the smoldering intensity he could muster.  
>   
> She let out a shocked laugh, then grinned and bit her lip and tilted her shoulder at him in a move that could only be described as salacious. “Aren't you naughty, Father.”
> 
> Well, that brought them both back crashing down to earth. They stared at each other, wearing the same faint smile, the same serious eyes.
> 
> “I should go,” he said after an awkward beat. “I have to swing by the church. For my robes.” 
> 
> And just like that, the spell broke. Not completely, but enough to proceed with the day. She glanced at her watch and flew back into panic mode, swearing and wriggling the blue dress over her head. 
> 
> God damn, he’d thought, shaking his head and ducking back into the bathroom. Did the woman _ever_ wear a bra?
> 
> When he came out, she was in the kitchen, hastily making sandwiches. She’d shoved one at him for the road, cupped his jaw and pressed a kiss to his lips, and sent him on his way with a squeeze of her hand. 
> 
> Later at the wedding, seeing her unexpectedly, he’d about died of longing. He was always so unnerved by her beauty, and he couldn’t stop himself from pinning her against the nearest wall, just as he’d known would happen. She’d done it on purpose, choosing the red dress instead of the blue. It was pretty and feminine and almost modest, except for the part where it was very, very short. She knew what it would do to him, and she did it anyway. And he was so glad of it.  
>   
> In the secret place between the house and the hedge, she had still smelled and tasted and felt like pure sex. His scent was all over her, and hers was on him. That bond - an excitement that was still somehow familiar, oneness with no beginning and no end - nearly overpowered him. Also, she was a really good kisser.  
>   
> But that wasn’t the final blow. That wasn’t what unraveled him, what made him breathe, “I don’t know what this feeling is,” even though he well fucking did.  
>   
> It was the intimacy of the whole thing, taken together. He looked at her and zoomed out, marveling at how the big sweeping picture was so dependent on the miracle of the mundane. All the tiny things that could potentially make up the rest of his life. And held within them, a kind of peace he’d never dared to imagine for himself.  
>   
> He willed her to speak the words he’d teed up: “It’s love, Andrew. That feeling is love.”  
>   
> He needed her to be the one to say it, so he could be the one to surrender. He wanted to do that for her: give her the upper hand, help her see that she didn’t need anyone else to tell her what to do. And he was desperate for selfish reasons, too. He needed to be let off the hook, so God and his bishop and he himself, most of all, could rest assured there had been no other way. He knew it was cowardly, but what else could he do?  
>   
> When she didn’t say any such thing, he saw that she was scared, too. She was looking to him to set the terms, determine the narrative. And he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. 
> 
> _Is it God or is it me?_ What kind of impossible fucking on-the-nose question was that? How was a person supposed to dig themselves out from that double-bind?
> 
> He still spent the day hoping crazily against hope, giving her every signal, every opportunity. Literally shouting his love at her in front of God and everybody. But it was right then, in admitting “I don’t know,” that he realized the timing was never going to work out. For them, it was always going to be both too early, and too late.

He comes out of his reverie to the sound of the door buzzer going. He looks at his watch and chuckles. 45 minutes late. 

Instantly, his heart starts pounding. His entire body floods with adrenaline. He staggers over to the foyer and stands before the front door.

His future is outside. That’s hard not to freak the fuck out about, especially given their past. He presses his hand against the door, as if it’s his own self, his own forehead. Exorcising the very last of his demons. 

He takes a deep breath. This is Phoebe. His Phoebe. She loves him. She wants him. To say nothing of what he feels for her. He realizes that he can’t even bring himself to regret the last four years, because it’s made them right for each other, finally.  
  
For once, their timing is perfect. 

He opens the door. She’s standing there, coat wrapped around her against the cold. Looking up at him. Grinning ear to ear.  
  
“Hello,” she says.

He smiles. And lets her in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * The phrase "cool your ass" might be unfamiliar to you, and that's because it was invented by my 8 year old, who says it to his sister when he wants her to calm down. 😂 It just felt right to include it because nobody's ever needed to cool his ass more than an extremely nostalgic former priest freaking out about reunion sex. 
> 
> I owe a debt of gratitude to the Reddit user who originally floated the theory that the Priest was actually waiting for Fleabag to confess her love first. Not all of her interpretations fit how I've written these characters, but the idea that he couldn't own up to grabbing the bull by the horns definitely seems like the old version of Andrew. You can read the theory here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fleabag/comments/dqfo0e/the_priest_didnt_choose_god/
> 
> Chapter title from "I Can't Be With You" by The Cranberries


	4. You Know I'm Such a Fool for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phoebe lets down the drawbridge of her heart and gives us a tour of the place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You people have ruined me. Never did I think I would write even one dick joke, let alone this many. But today we're in Phoebe's brain, and while it's a much healthier place than it used to be, she still basically has a one-track mind when it comes to our man. This was a very fun one!
> 
> With gratitude to JBCF, if she's reading, for reminding me to thank all the messy things about yourself for the ways they've protected you. ❤️

* * *

The sex is mind-blowing. Of course it is. 

As soon as she's inside the flat, he gathers her up in his arms and kisses her tenderly. Then he pushes her against the wall of the foyer, tears her coat open, kicks her feet apart, and does every last thing he’d whispered to her outside the office that morning. 

It’s fast, and intense, and a bit out of control. It damn near kills them both, which comes as no surprise given the years of sexual tension and longing and love unfurling all at once, crashing over them.  
  
When they’ve worn each other out, they collapse into his bed, joyful and laughing. Before they can do more than twine their fingers together, they fall asleep.   
  


* * *

  
When she opens her eyes, she’s disoriented. It’s dark outside. The room is pitch black, but she doesn’t think it can be morning. 

Groggily, she shifts herself to peek over his shoulder at the alarm clock on the bedside table. 20:37. They’ve been asleep for a few hours, she guesses, and she’s starving. 

Her vision is starting to adjust in the darkness. She stares at the ceiling and smiles. She still can’t believe this is actually happening.

She looks at his back and traces the outline of his shoulder blade. _Don’t be greedy_ , she tells herself. _Let him sleep._  
  
But her resolve doesn’t last long. The idea that she can have any part of him she wants, any time she wants, for as long as she wants... is a lot to manage. It’s a privilege and a responsibility that she’ll learn to handle appropriately. At some point. In the future. 

For now, she’s just going to, y’know, _handle it._ _  
__  
_She laughs at her own joke and wraps herself around his body, nudging her legs behind his, threading her arms around his midsection and pressing herself into his back. She rests her chin on his shoulder and stacks her cheek on top of his.  
  
“Hi,” he mutters into the pillow.  
  
“Hi,” she murmurs back. He’s looking very sleepy and not paying her as much attention as she’d like, so she wriggles around a little bit. When that doesn’t work, she bites his ear.

“Ouch!” he complains, batting at her. She does it again. This time he flips over and pins her arms, which is exactly the response she’d been trying to provoke. 

“Thought you didn’t bite.” His face is right above hers and his eyes are still lidded with sleep. “You’ll pay for that.”

“I certainly hope so,” she returns. This is the most fun she’s had in ages. She’s positively giddy. 

He lowers himself over her slowly, still gripping her hands. _All that damn yoga,_ she thinks. _God bless Marco._

“Let’s play Regular Things,” he says into her ear. 

Fucking hot. “Okay,” she says lightly. “You first.”

He does that thing where his eyes are boring into her soul, and she stops breathing for a few seconds. So she’s already at a disadvantage when he whispers, “Are you ticklish?” 

She only has a split second to decide if that question weirds her out or turns her on, because he suddenly wrestles her underneath him, digging his finger into the spot between her neck and her shoulder. She curls into herself and shrieks.  
  
“Well, that answers that question,” he says. He waits a moment, then dives back in, grinning devilishly. He gets her at the nape of her neck, under her arm, and at her waist.  
  
She’s laughing so hard she’s worried she might pee. She writhes around, absolutely mental, and manages to gasp out, “Stop! Stop!”

He does, right away, sitting up and beaming at her from his perch atop her body. So pleased with himself. 

“I didn’t actually mean stop,” she says grumpily, frowning at him.

“Well then, don’t say stop,” he reprimands, teasing. “I play by the rules. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but consent is sexy.” 

She smiles. “ _You’re_ sexy,” she hears herself saying. Blecchhhhh, she makes herself want to vomit. Gushing all over this man like an over-scripted idiot from the reality shows she favors. 

He flops down next to her on his side, and she turns to face him. They smile at each other. She’s been smiling all day. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be this in love. How much your face hurts from grinning like a maniac all the time.

She smooths his hair back from his face, combing it through. He nestles a little closer to her. “You can keep doing that,” he says drowsily, closing his eyes.  
  
She does, for a while, scratching his scalp lightly, twisting his curls with her fingers, honing in on the threads of silver in his hair and admiring the way it’s gotten long and messy in the back.  
  
But his lips are magnets, and eventually, she’s powerless to do anything but attach herself to them. 

They go much slower this time. Drinking in every part of each other, savoring every touch, making everything last.  
  
She used to like sex because it made her busy, chattering mind go completely blank for once. With him, her mind is somehow both a lovely white, empty room of nothingness, and a perfectly clear and present picture of everything beautiful in life. It’s wild.  
  
In the dark of his room, she lets her thoughts fly free. She swings between the sacred and the profane, usually landing somewhere in between: 

_I can’t believe this is happening._

_That feels fucking incredible._

_A dick like that should be illegal._

_I wonder what our children will look like._

_Jesus God Jesus Oh Fuck Oh God._ _  
__  
__I love you._

_I love you._

_I love you.  
  
_

* * *

  
“You,” she says, poking at his stomach with her finger, basking in the afterglow, “are very good at all that.” 

He smiles into her neck, his breath tickling. “Mmm, so I've heard,” he says lazily. “I’m actually told my dick should be illegal.”

She freezes, then jerks her head back to look at him. “Oh shit,” she says. “Did I...?” She’s rarely mortified, but she’s never wanted to disappear quite so badly.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he says, eyes dancing. “It’s a lovely compliment.” He pauses and furrows his brow. “The bit about kids was a sort of a buzzkill, though.”

She rolls away from him and lets out an extravagant groan. He starts laughing and half-tackles her, which she _loves_ , but pretends she doesn’t. She covers her face, but he gently pries her hands away and gazes into her. 

“I’m teasing, Phoebe,” he says, which she already knew, but it’s nice to hear anyway. He looks up at the ceiling for a minute, chewing at his thumbnail. Then back at her. “You never would’ve said any of those things before. Where'd the walls around that heart go? It’s beautiful.”

She bristles a bit. “The walls are still there,” she insists, almost proudly. “I just... let down the drawbridge for certain people.” She’s having to do some pretty diligent mental work, actually, to resist yanking it back up again, leaving him on the outside. Self-preservation dies hard. 

He chuckles and runs his hand over her tattoo. “I’m honored,” he says. “I’ll tread carefully. Just please don’t put me in the moat with the alligators again.”

She rolls her eyes at him. He’s so corny. But he’s also right.  
  
In the past, she threw him out in a panic as soon as it became clear that he’d somehow got past the gate and scaled the walls. Because that meant he’d glimpsed her interior life, a ramshackle mess of barbed humor and a hypomanic sex drive and imaginary friends. All of which were there for one purpose: to guard her secret pain.  
  
In his overwrought metaphor, she wasn’t the princess waiting to be rescued or the queen presiding judiciously over the kingdom. She was the dragon sitting on its hoard, breathing fire at anyone who got too close. 

As she's done many times before, she takes a moment to thank the walls and the humor and her imaginary friends and even the self-sabotaging sex for their years of service in protecting her tender heart. That’s something she learned from her therapist, Dr. Shaw - how healing it can be, the practice of expressing gratitude to one's coping mechanisms for providing a necessary escape hatch during hard times. It’s silly, but it does work.  
  
(The good doctor is going to lose her mind when she hears about the reunion with the fuckable priest from all those years ago. And Shaw losing her mind is always extremely gratifying. It goes like this: the world’s biggest sigh, the world’s longest silence, the world’s loudest bracelets clanking together, and finally, the world’s tiniest hint of a smile. She’ll probably say something in her velvety, aristocratic voice like, “Well, I suppose we’ve got our work cut out for us, haven’t we.” Phoebe cannot wait to flip her shit on Tuesday.) 

“Hey,” he says, nudging her gently with his nose. “Where’d you go?” 

She brushes her knuckles over his jaw. His bone structure is criminal, like everything else about him. 

“Nowhere,” she says. “Just thinking. Had to check on the interior castle. Everything’s in order.” 

"Glad to hear it," he says. Then: “Aren’t you going to ask me a Regular Thing? It’s your turn.” 

She didn’t know they were still playing. He’s gotten better at this game, which means she doesn’t have the upper hand anymore. And _that_ means she'll have to answer more questions, especially if he keeps distracting her. Damn. 

She turns on her side again and mirrors him, one hand tucked under her head like a pillow, one hand between their bodies. She laces her fingers with his and tries to think of a good question. 

Got it. Narrowing her eyes at him, she asks, “How old are you?”

He sniffs a laugh, but doesn’t hesitate before answering. “Forty-six,” he says.

He’s daring her with his eyes to react, so she doesn’t. “A spring chicken,” she teases. But she actually can’t believe it. He’s got such a baby face.  
  
A horrifying thought suddenly dawns on her, and it must be written all over her features. He looks at her with amused interest.

“Oh God,” she says. “You’re the same age as my step-mother.” 

“There is no way that’s true!” he exclaims indignantly, laughing. “She’s got to be in her late fifties by now.” 

“Nope,” she says. “She likes to say she's an old soul. I think she’s forty-eight, though she’d never actually tell. She was my mum’s student in her early 20s, and I was 12 or 13 at the time, so that’s my best estimate.”

“Jesus, that must’ve made everything even more bizarre,” he says sympathetically. He props himself up on his elbow, head in hand, looking pensive. “So has she always been an insufferable cunt, or just since your mum died?” 

She laughs. It releases a few knots in her soul to know that someone else sees through Caroline’s charming con. Possibly because it takes one to know one, but nevermind that. 

“Oh, since always,” she says. “I just took it more personally when she infiltrated my family and started throwing passive-aggressive daggers at my back every ten seconds.” She gives him her winning smile. 

He looks thoughtful. “You don’t have to listen, you know,” he says. “To any of the shit she says. Don't take it to heart. You can just let it sort of… wash over you.”

“Mmm,” she says. “Like a refreshing shit shower. Sounds lovely, I’ll try that.” 

“No, seriously,” he replies, earnest. “Consider the source. She’s a deeply sad woman who has to collect other people’s interesting experiences because she’s actually really fucking boring, and she’s terrified everyone will find out. You steal her spotlight because of how effortlessly fascinating you are. That’s why she’s so vile to you.” 

She stares at him in astonishment. “Wow,” she says. “Did they teach you all that in priest school as well? I think you’ve made me feel sorry for her. I may never forgive you.” 

He smiles. “That’s the trick to awful people,” he says, looping his fingers through her necklace and rubbing his thumb over the wishbone charm. “Just see them for who they are, and be kind anyway. It takes all their power away.” 

_Mum, you would've adored him,_ she thinks out of nowhere, tears suddenly stinging her eyes. The grief takes her breath away. She lets herself feel it, all the way through to the end, then beams the excess of left-over love into the universe. A lot of it goes straight from her heart to his. The rest either her mother will receive, wherever she is, or someone else can take it and use what they need. 

When she comes out on the other side, he's gazing at her patiently, in it with her, but giving her space. She wedges her head into the crook of his neck. “You’re too good for me,” she says, and means it. 

“I know,” he says. “I’m a saint. Also, I’m much too old for you.” He tweaks her on the chin. “Thirty-seven. Just a wain.” 

She’s not sure how he figured that out. Maybe what she said about Caroline being her mum’s student, plus a lucky guess. _Get you a man who can do sums in his head while psycho-analyzing your evil step-mother_ , she thinks, laughing to herself. 

“Are you hungry?” he asks, suddenly and enthusiastically.

“Famished,” she answers. “Order in?”

He sits up and considers. “I actually think I’d prefer to cook for you,” he says. “Would you like that?” 

Would she. She amends her previous fawning statement: _Get you a math whiz who understands your weird family dynamic_ _and_ _likes to cook._ Bonus points if he fucks like some kind of depraved, mercurial ancient Roman deity. _Damn_ she’s hit the jackpot. She’s a bit jealous of herself. 

“Yes please,” she says, stretching luxuriously. He kisses her before getting up and pulling on a pair of soft plaid pants that are draped over a chair. 

“Do you like sausages?” he says, tilting his head at her as he tugs a henley shirt over his head. 

“Oh, I… like sausages all right.” He was asking for that one. What an easy dunk.

He laughs and chucks a pillow at her. “Get yourself cleaned up,” he says. “Shower’s all yours if you want.” 

Is he setting her up for these jabs? “I'm sure there's room for two,” she pouts, giving him the puppy dog eyes. 

“Let’s pace ourselves, my love,” he says, grinning and running his hands through his hair, which he knows drives her crazy. See? Mercurial. 

She contorts her face at him in mock anger. He gives her the eyebrows and walks away, whistling some tune. 

“Cocktease,” she calls after him. 

“You love it,” he sings back at her in a high, weird voice that makes her laugh. 

Oof, he’s got her number. He’ll never get her to leave now. She’s here to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Linger" by The Cranberries


	5. You're Spinning Me Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never did I imagine we'd see the Priest smoking up in his kitchen and hosting a little dance party for two, but here we are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is still written from Phoebe's perspective, but I've pulled back from her innermost thoughts and lightning-quick reactions. It's a lot of dialogue and banter, but things get pretty intense at points, so I wanted a slightly more spare structure.

* * *

After she’s gotten out of the shower, toweled her hair off, rummaged around in his drawers for some comfortable clothes, and flipped through all the books on his bedside table, she follows the sound of music into the kitchen. 

She stands in the doorway, completely reassessing her understanding of him based on what she’s seeing, hearing, and smelling. 

His back is to her at the cooker, where he’s frying eggs, shaking his cute little ass, and occasionally ripping an air guitar move. There’s a speaker blasting some wretched pop song, which he’s singing along to, badly. And hanging in the air, along with the breakfast grease, is the distinctive fug of marijuana. 

She watches him, incredulous, until she can’t help herself: she bursts out laughing. 

He whips around. “Oh shit!” he says, grabbing at his phone to turn down the volume on the music. “You were not supposed to see any of this.”

She wrinkles her brow in amusement. “How were you planning to manage that?” she asks, leaning against the door frame. “Pretty hard to miss. Especially that bit.” She gestures at the joint propped up against a jar lid next to the stove. 

He looks at it like he’d forgotten it was there, then picks it up and holds it out to her. “Want to share?” he asks. 

She smiles. “Are you allowed to have that?” she asks suspiciously. 

He takes a drag. It’s dead sexy, but she can’t help feeling a bit worried. 

Exhaling upward, he smiles at her. “There’s no rules to it,” he says. “Other than _don’t drink_. The rest you figure out between yourself and your sponsor and the steps.”

She examines him, uncertain if he’s bullshitting her. She doesn’t know that much about sobriety. She does get that it’s not her responsibility to keep him on the path, but she wants to understand his parameters, at least. 

He must be able to read her face, because he says, “This is my Sunday night ritual. Proper fry-up, loud music, smoke. Generally alone, but I’m glad of the company.” He looks at her with his trademark candor. “Your company.”

He holds out the joint again. This time she takes it, careful to go easy. She hasn’t smoked weed in years, and even then in small measures with her circle of trust: Claire, only twice, hilarious on both occasions. Boo, more frequently, after the cafe closed for the night.  
  
And her mum, daily, once she started on it to dull the chemo side effects.

She gets a sudden vision of the pair of them, sat in the garden, wrapped in blankets, passing a joint back and forth, her mum’s favorite bands blaring from a tinny bluetooth speaker, giggling like children. Her father, peeking his head out the back door, irritated. “Billy darling, you look like a disgruntled pelican,” Margaret said in her most patrician voice, which made Phoebe laugh even harder. “Come out here and have some fun.” He’d shaken his head at them and gone back inside, shutting the door a little more firmly than necessary.

She exhales the memory along with the smoke, then ashes the joint into the jar lid and stands close to him with her back against the counter, watching him work. He shifts the sausages around the pan and flips the eggs with practiced ease. 

He looks her up and down out of the corner of his eye as he finishes sauteeing the mushrooms. “I see you’ve made yourself at home,” he says, grinning. 

She glances down at the t-shirt and sweatpants she nicked from his wardrobe. “Well, I wasn’t going to stuff myself back in that dress,” she says. “It’s a fucking straightjacket.” 

“Yes, I’m aware,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “I’m the one who had to get it off you before. I thought we were going to need scissors.” 

She laughs and nudges him with her shoulder. “I was trying to find that Buffalo Bill shirt,” she says. “The one you were wearing in the garden at the church, that time with the fox.” 

He looks startled. “Mind like a steel trap, noted,” he says, almost to himself, then points the spatula at her sternly. “It’s in with the washing. Also, it’s my favorite and you can’t have it.” 

She sucks her teeth at him petulantly. “But I want it for a trophy,” she says. “That was the first time you told me we weren’t going to have sex. And look.” Her grin is triumphant. “We’ve had _so much sex_.” 

He laughs. “We’ve only had sex twice,” he reminds her.

“Twice?!” she exclaims in disbelief. “You've got to be shitting me.”

“How do _you_ count it?” he challenges. “For me, the whole experience equals one time. Night before the wedding was once. Today makes twice.” 

“That’s complete rubbish,” she says, appalled. “You’re supposed to count by orgasms. And we’ve had” - she pretends to add it up on her fingers - “well, a lot between us. _Definitely_ more than two.”

“Fair enough,” he says, then goes playfully skeptical. “But I still don’t think you’ve earned Buffalo Bill. That’s more like a fifty-orgasm prize, and even we aren’t there yet.” 

“Better get cracking then,” she says, and sticks her hand down the front of his pajama bottoms. 

“Jesus!” he yelps, leaping away from her, gesturing frantically at the cooker. “Paws off the chef! Hot oil! I reject your mayhem, you chaos demon!”

She laughs as he rakes his hands through his hair, making it stick up every which way. “Sorry,” she says carelessly.

“You’re not and you know it,” he grumbles. He reaches across her to take another hit off the joint, then passes it to her wordlessly. As he sticks some bread into the toaster, she bumps him with her hip until he smiles.

“I love you,” she says to him. “And I would never hurt you on purpose. But I’m also never going to stop trying to get in your pants, even if I burn everything down.” 

He laughs and switches off the flame on the range. Suddenly, he freezes. He puts down the spatula carefully and turns to her with his hands out, a wildly excited look taking over his face.

“What is happening right now,” she says, amused but wary.

“Ohhhhhh, it’s this song,” he says, shaking his head slowly, almost breathless, clapping his hand to his chest like he does when he’s overwhelmed. “This is the greatest song of all time. This is my motherfuckin’ _jam_ , Phoebe.” 

Okay, so this is Andrew on drugs: himself, but turned up several notches. He’s already pretty intense, so this is helpful information. She prepares to absorb an ultra-concentrated dose of his usual chatty zeal, not that she minds.

She grins as he slides the volume bar on his phone, expecting Taylor Swift or his old standby J.Lo to come pumping from the speaker. So she’s surprised when it’s the opening strains of a Cranberries song that she hasn’t heard in years.  
  
The last time might have been that night in the garden with her mum, actually. Fuck.

He folds her hands into his between them. He closes his eyes and tips his head back. He looks a bit like he’s praying. She watches him with interest, the movements of his eyes under their lids, the little ticks his mouth makes in time with the beat, the way he’s tapping his fingers slightly against her own. It’s super weird and insanely adorable in equal measures. 

He opens his eyes suddenly. “Do you like music?” he asks her, very seriously, eyebrows lowered.

She laughs nervously. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“No,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “I mean, yes. But not everyone _likes_ music, you know what I mean? God, a song like this, Phoebe. It gets its hooks into your soul. It expresses something vital about the world, about love. Do you hear that?”

“I hear it,” she says, non-committal.  
  
He points at the speaker, totally caught up in the moment, hitting an invisible cymbal a few times. “Ugh. _This_ is exactly how it feels when you’ve got it stupid-bad for somebody.”  
  
He looks at her again, completely artless, heart on his sleeve. “It’s how I feel about you. It’s what hope sounds like, Phoebe. Do you understand?”

“Sure,” she says. 

“No, don’t blow me off!” he says, getting a bit worked up, frustrated. “Listen.” She does. “Close your eyes.” She does. He places her hand over his heart, and she can feel it thrumming beneath his shirt and his skin. “Do you not _feel_ that?”

She thinks about how to explain it to him. She knows she can trust him, but she’s never said this out loud to anyone.  
  
“I do feel it,” she finally says in a quiet voice. He leans in to hear her, still tapping the beat on her hands. “But I don’t listen to much music anymore. Songs - good songs, _this_ song - make me feel everything so deeply. And my feelings are already too big for my body, so I just kind of… explode with it all. It’s painful. It hurts. And it reminds me too much of my mum.” She smiles bravely and tilts her head at him, tears spilling over despite her best efforts. “So I just stick to podcasts.” 

He stares at her. Then: “Come here to me, you gorgeous thing,” he murmurs, folding her into himself. His accent lilts spectacularly when he’s under the influence, she notices, and it’s really doing it for her even in this emotional moment. “Oh, you tender fucking heart. Who told you your feelings were too big? Give them here, I’ll take them. I’m not scared.”

He kisses her. It’s the definition of bittersweet, sadness and hope all tangled up together. When he pulls away, he cups her face. “Dance with me,” he says, eyes shining. 

Before she can respond, he’s sweeping her up and spinning her around the kitchen. She’s so surprised she can’t think of anything narky to say. The man’s got actual moves. 

“Let go,” he whispers, running his thumb across her lower back. And she does. She melts. She relaxes into his arms and lets the walls come all the way down, because her secret self has almost never been safer than with him. He's in the pantheon now: Mum. Claire. Boo. Andrew.   
  
She dances like an idiot, feeling the music, following his lead - sometimes close to him, wrapped up in his arms, sometimes flailing joyfully like a teenager at a concert. She gives herself over to the song as it bends the limits of euphoria - drums like a heartbeat, both strong and unsteady, guitar riffs like infatuation just blooming into something real, harmonies like banshees crying in some otherworldly tongue.  
  
He sings the lyrics into her ear a few times when they’re dancing close: “The person falling here is me… You’re what I couldn’t find… You’re everything to me” - and she wants to die of heartbreak and happiness. Some of it is the weed, yes, but a lot of it is just plain love. 

As the song slows down and its wild yelps fade out, they stand apart and look at each other for another impossibly long time. 

“Phoebe,” he says, the fox grin creeping across his features. “I’ll grab the food. Let’s get stoned and fucking feel things.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's another big ol' Schitts Creek easter egg in here, btw! Did you spot it?
> 
> Chapter title from "Sunday" by The Cranberries


	6. Do You See Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As advertised: Phoebe & Andrew get stoned and feel things.
> 
> ETA: This is the last chapter in Part 2, which I only realized after I sat with it for a little bit. Trying to figure out if there's enough story to tell for a Part 3!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me ages to write, and frankly, I don't know if it's even readable. I did away with all quotation marks and most line breaks in an effort to communicate the interconnectedness they're experiencing in this chapter, so saddle up for some William Faulkner shit. (Intimacy + mind-altering substances = stream of consciousness??) Let me know in the comments if you get what's happening or not! 
> 
> Also, I watched Andrew Scott's episode of the 2013 show "Dates" just before I started writing this. Some of my character's backstory is inspired by the complete tomfoolery of Christian in that show. More notes on this below.
> 
> ETA: Playlist for this chapter! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7ljWLTXLNNiI8oMt7to5X5

They set up a picnic on the living room floor. He spreads out a quilt that looks like it came from a musty closet in someone’s nan’s house. He casually and capably builds an actual fire in his actual fireplace, which nearly ends her, but she manages to keep it together by puttering around the kitchen. She butters toast, arranges their plates, boils water in the electric kettle, steeps tea, and folds cloth napkins into triangles, then carries all of it on a tray into the front room.

They sit in the semi-darkness, eating their second late-night meal together in 24 hours. The fry-up is delicious, just what she needed to soak up the last of her lingering hangover from the whiskey incident, and she tells him so. Other than that, they’re quiet, listening to the crackle of the fire and the scrape of utensils on crockery and the sounds of each other chewing and breathing. It’s quotidian, but not boring or awkward. It’s intimacy.

After they finish, he takes the tray back to the kitchen. She can hear him doing the washing up and returning everything to its place. She admires his commitment to maintaining a fastidious household and knows she will never be able to keep up, which will eventually annoy the hell out of him. But that’s a problem for another day.

She stretches out on the quilt with a pillow from the couch and luxuriates in the mild buzz she’s still riding. Slowly, she becomes aware of an appraising presence at her side and turns to meet the green eyes of a gray cat with delicate white paws. She puts her hand out for it to sniff, murmuring reassuringly, and after a few moments, the creature leaps gracefully onto her chest. There, it curls into a little cat-shaped loaf, purring into Phoebe's face. 

When Andrew returns from the kitchen, he lies down beside her and hands over a freshly rolled joint with a perfect cherry glowing at its tip. He furrows his brow at the cat, who glares back through slitted eyes. What the fuck is happening here, he says. Your cat’s a sweetheart, she says. Fucking hell, he grumbles, I knew this would happen. Don’t breathe too deeply, she’s trying to steal your soul. Nah, we’re already friends, Phoebe says, so she knows I don’t have one worth taking. Then: What’s her name? she asks.  
  
He looks confused. I dunno, I always just call her _the cat_ , he says. What kind of sociopath doesn’t name a cat, she accuses. Don’t look at me, he replies, there's only one sociopath in this family and it's the furry one with four legs. Well, there’s nothing for it then, she says after studying the elegant animal for a moment. You waited too long, so now the poor thing has to be called Bernie. Which is so funny to both of them that the cat gets shaken off Phoebe’s chest and scared away by their laughter. Bernie it is, he says. God knows that motherfucker hates me too.  
  
They trade the joint back and forth. She feels relaxed, totally unfettered. They’ve both called out of work for the next day, because how often do you reunite with the probable love of your life. They’ll nest in as long as they can get away with it, considering that they’re both responsible adults with actual obligations. They’re obsessed with each other, but they’re also realists. They know it won’t last forever, this period of total immersion, consumption, infatuation. So they’re leaning into it, hard, without even having really discussed if they’re on the same page. They just are.

They smoke for a bit in companionable silence. Then he pads away to retrieve his phone, syncing it to the living room speaker, which is tucked in among many books on many shelves. He cues up a Mazzy Star song that she vaguely remembers from university days as the ultimate dreamy make-out track. It’s an assessment that still holds true fifteen years later, because when he returns to her side, they roll around and grab at each other’s asses and generally snog the shit out of each other for a while. She enjoys it immensely, even though it doesn’t get her any closer to earning the Buffalo Bill shirt.

Time starts to pool, bead, and slip like liquid mercury. She rests the back of her head on the pillow of his chest, their bodies perpendicular, watching light and shadows move on the ceiling. His arm is draped across her stomach, fingers worrying the hem of her shirt. They start to hand his phone back and forth between them, playing their favorite songs for each other, telling stories about the who and when and why of them.  
  
Most of her references are at least 10 years old, due to the whole avoiding music after her mum died thing. She picks out some of Margaret’s eclectic favorites in tribute. Her mother loved men with strange and haunted voices - Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Stephin Merritt, Nick Cave, Nick Drake, all the Nicks really. But her guilty pleasure was Harry Styles. (Well, who can blame her, Andrew says, that dude is a sex god with the voice of an angel.) She tells him that Margaret insisted on front-row seats to a One Direction show for her 60th, right before they found out she was sick, during which Harry actually pulled her mother onstage for a PG-rated lap dance. At the time, Phoebe was completely mortified, to say nothing of Claire, who immediately took a taxi home and didn’t speak to their mother for a week. But now they remember the evening fondly, or at least Phoebe does - her mother’s exuberance preserved in amber, a rich inheritance of wickedness and fun.  
  
She used to tell me I could be anything I wanted, Phoebe says, as long as I was outrageous. She must be proud then, you’re an absolute devil, he replies, stroking her hair, and she laughs. Do you have a picture of her? he asks. She pulls one up on her phone and shows him. You’re the spit of her, he says. Not just how she looks, but how she is. All that energy jumps right out at you. I wish I could have met her. She agrees, and lets the grief take her again, snuffling like a child into his soft shirt. A release.  
  
A lot of the songs he picks are about heartbreak and longing and epic love, no surprise there. He’s newly taken with Americana and classic country, so there’s a fair bit of that. He’s adorably enthusiastic about Dolly Parton in particular, and she gets the appeal after hearing “Jolene.” And of course there’s the requisite radio pop he favors, though he doesn’t subject her to much. She does like the Lorde stuff, it turns out, all moody and atmospheric and maladjusted. He plays her an angsty yet somehow upbeat Taylor Swift earworm about meeting someone you know will completely fuck up your life and getting involved with them anyway.  
  
It’s our theme song, he says. As soon as you walked into that engagement dinner, before I even knew a thing about you, I literally thought, _Here comes trouble_. And when you sat down next to me with your soft-focus silent film star face and your polite fury and your bad attitude, it was all over. I spent the rest of the night trying not to look at your boobs and praying that you would turn out to be a bore so I wouldn’t have to fall in love with you. No such luck, she says. None at all, he replies, and kisses her. 

He fetches them large glasses of water, and they sit cross-legged to play another round of Regular Things. She raises the stakes by asking him about his life before the priesthood, but by now their defenses are low enough that it feels no riskier than talking about the weather. He tells her that he was married to a woman named Helen for two years. Wow, she says. First Agnes, now this. Do all your exes have little old lady names? He laughs. She asks him what Helen was like. Driven, severe, passionate, he says. Bit like Claire, actually. She pulls a face at him. Good job making it weird, she says. She asks why they split up. Well, at the time I thought it was because she was a frigid workaholic who refused to understand my deep thoughts on life. But it turned out that I was a serially unfaithful narcissist with delusions of grandeur who may or may not have joined a cult.  
  
There’s a silence while she processes this. Then she nods her head and says, That checks out. They both laugh, him ruefully.

He tells her more, the pain he caused Helen and all the others, the day he hit rock bottom yet managed to find even further to fall. After Helen left, he self-destructed completely, eventually waking up crammed into a church confessional with a prostitute, drunk out of his mind, crying to her about his emotionally unavailable parents, telling her that he didn’t want to fuck _her_ , he wanted to fuck God. The woman laughed in his face, kneed him in the nuts, and left him there, which was more than fair. When he came to later in a puddle of his own vomit, an elderly priest was crouched beside him, draping a cool cloth on his brow and speaking over him words of healing and peace.  
  
I got everything I deserved and nothing I deserved, all in one go, he says, eyes shining at the memory, jaw working against his tears. This man made me feel seen, and known, and cared for, despite everything I’d done, everything I was. By the time he sent me back out into the world, I had an idea of a calling that could protect me from myself. That could protect other people from my worst tendencies and give me a template for becoming whole. I wanted to do unto others as had been done unto me.  
  
After a long moment, he reaches out to tap her hand. It’s okay if you hate me, he says, I know it’s a lot. I could never hate you, she says. Are you scared? he asks. Of what? she says. I’m still that person, somewhere inside, he says. The one that cheated and lied and believed his own bullshit and wielded charm like a weapon. I’ve done the work, but I’m an addict, and that will never change.  
  
She puts her hand to his face. We are not our mistakes, she says. Or our addictions. Or our sins, if you want to call them that. They belong to us, they always will. But we don’t belong to them. Boo taught me that.

And she tells him everything. All of it. Each insane, ridiculous detail. The story of her bond with Boo and how it broke. Her culpability in the abrupt, absurd, totally preventable death of her best friend. The way she’s never gotten over it and probably never will. I think about her constantly, she says, even still, even after all this time. I have friends now, real ones, but there will never be another Boo. Over and over, I’ve tried to forgive myself, but it’s the one thing I can’t do. She haunts me, and that’s the price I have to pay for what I did. 

He’s quiet for a long time. I have an idea, he says. Okay, she says. You have to trust me, he says, it’s going to be weird. I’m pretty well basted at this point, she says, so I’m game for whatever. He smiles.  
  
Then, he cups her face in both hands, the way he did that night in the confessional. May God grant you pardon and peace, he says, searching her eyes, light fingers skating over her jaw, cherishing. May you be reconciled to your essential self, and restored to an inner harmony that has long been disturbed.  
  
He leans his forehead to hers. Ego te absolvo, he whispers. I absolve you. 

She’s stunned at first, and almost angry. Then she gets a flash of memory that roots her. She tells him about it:

After her mother’s funeral, she couldn’t bear to wear the wishbone necklace. She'd yanked it off one night, drunk and raging, and threw it into the back of a drawer, where it got tangled with a bunch of other cheap jewelry. She forgot about it for a year. Then one day, when she was hunting around for a pen, her fingers touched the delicate chain. She pulled it out and put the whole mess in her lap. It was hopelessly knotted. She'd turned the balled-up jewelry over and over, and couldn’t find a place to start, and got so frustrated that she dissolved into a storm of angry tears all over again. Her last physical connection to her mother was ruined. She'd called Boo, who came over, sat down, and calmly took the mass of chain and baubles and clasps into her own lap. “Let’s get this sorted,” Boo said in her usual matter of fact way. She found tweezers in the bathroom and picked at the chain until it loosened. Then she gave the whole thing back over to Phoebe. “There we go,” Boo had said. “I’ve got it started. You take it from here.”

In the quiet of the front room, she sits with her face resting in his hands, his thumb stroking her cheek and his eyes boring into her with a look that is complete and unconditional.  
  
Okay then, he says. Do like Boo said. I know you and I love you. Boo did, and your mum. Claire too. Your dad. We’ve got it started tonight, the chain of forgiveness. You take it from here. 

And even though she doesn’t believe in sin, or penance, or intercession, or even God most of the time, something shifts within her. Some deep interior knot begins to unwind. 

That night, they burrow into each other, cocooned in a nest of pillows and blankets on the floor, fire burning down to embers in the hearth and music lulling them off. She sleeps soundly and dreamlessly for the first time in years. Safe, and known, and loved. Home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re: the controversial "Dates" episode theory. If you haven't seen it, Andrew Scott plays a guy named Christian whose sexual appetites, religious fervor, and narcissism ruin several relationships in one go. Some folks have floated the idea that this character makes a pretty good stand-in for our Priest before he found the church, and that he then chose the priesthood as a way of both facing and curbing his destructive tendencies. Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it, so I took it as inspiration. (Even though the character is called something different from mine - I dunno, maybe his middle name is Andrew and he started using that when he became a priest, as a way to differentiate from his pre-church life and also because a priest called Christian was too on the nose?!) 
> 
> Chapter title from "Ode to My Family" by The Cranberries

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title from "Ode to My Family" by the Cranberries


End file.
